


time crawls on when you're waiting for the song to start

by aoigensou



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Awkward Flirting, Disaster Gay Merlin (Merlin), Figure Skater Arthur (Merlin), M/M, YouTuber Merlin (Merlin)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-16 04:14:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28700505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aoigensou/pseuds/aoigensou
Summary: Merlin looked around in dismay at the group of kids who couldn't have been more than seven years old surrounding him as everyone put on their skates — the children with their own, Merlin renting his from the facility — and started to head toward the ice. He supposed he should have actually read the fine print when he signed up for the class, and of course a beginner’s ice skating class would be mostly for children. There might have been one for adults, but Merlin hadn’t bothered looking, he just went straight for the one that was cheapest and geared toward beginners.
Relationships: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 33
Kudos: 135
Collections: The Melee Challenge





	time crawls on when you're waiting for the song to start

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Merlin Fic Server's Melee challenge! It's late, but at least it's finished 😅
> 
> Huge thank you to [FervidAsAFlame](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FervidAsAFlame/pseuds/FervidAsAFlame) for the quick beta and super encouragement! I'm sorry it's not 50k, but maybe someday it will be 😂
> 
> Another thanks to my husband, who threw prompts at me like spaghetti at the wall. This was the one that stuck for some reason.
> 
> Title taken from The Phoenix by Fall Out Boy. Merlin's YouTube channel concept is loosely inspired by The Try Guys and a bit of Safiya Nygaard.

Merlin looked around in dismay at the group of kids who couldn't have been more than seven years old surrounding him as everyone put on their skates — the children with their own, Merlin renting his from the facility — and started to head toward the ice. He supposed he should have actually read the fine print when he signed up for the class, and of course a beginner’s ice skating class would be mostly for children. There might have been one for adults, but Merlin hadn’t bothered looking, he just went straight for the one that was cheapest and geared toward beginners.

He clutched at his GoPro in his pocket, hesitant to bring it out to start filming his first impressions vlog-style the way he did with all his videos, and wondered if he was going to be able to make this video at all. The mums watching the kids — kids they no doubt hoped were future Olympic hopefuls — probably wouldn’t agree to their little angels showing up on some moderately-popular YouTube channel where Merlin tried, and usually failed, to do things he’d never done before.

It wasn’t the highest-concept project in the world, and certainly not what he had dreamt of doing with his film school degree, but his channel, _An Attempt Was Made,_ paid the bills and with a bit left over to let Merlin have fun with some of his shoots.

Fun that he didn’t think was going to happen with this particular shoot, despite the low level of excitement he’d felt since he and his best friend/producer Gwen had discussed doing a series of videos about Merlin learning how to skate. He’d wanted to skate his whole life, but his mother had never thought it prudent, what with Merlin being a walking accident waiting to happen. He didn’t blame her for her caution, but he had been looking forward to scratching that childhood itch.

With a shrug, Merlin tightened the laces on his borrowed figure skates, tucking them into the boots to make sure they weren’t going to drag on the ice and trip him, before gingerly stepping out onto the ice. He heard some of the mums behind him tittering, he assumed at him, and wondered what on earth they could be saying. He shook his head after a moment, figuring it was no use worrying about it and began to move along the edge of the rink, keeping one hand against the boards for stability. He regretted telling Gwen not to come, that he wanted this first lesson to be just him getting a feel for things and vlogging about it. Maybe getting an interview with the instructor. Gwen had planned to come to the second lesson to film some far away shots with his better camera and because she didn’t want to miss a chance at seeing Merlin sliding around on his arse, something he was in danger of doing imminently. At least if Gwen were here he’d have someone to commiserate with, and not feel so alone and awkward.

“They always make it look so easy in the Olympics,” he murmured, trying not to feel too humiliated by the fact that kids two decades younger than him were whizzing along the ice with only slight wobbles. Some were even in the centre of the rink attempting spins that would make Merlin dizzy.

“People who make it to the Olympics have been doing this for practically their entire lives,” a deep voice behind him said, startling Merlin enough to make him jump. The unfortunate byproduct of said startlement was that his feet didn’t know how to keep him upright on the slippery surface and, with a graceless flail of his limbs, Merlin’s arse hit the ice. The jolt of pain shot up his spine, making him gasp and groan before looking up at the prat who’d startled him.

“Oh,” Merlin said dumbly, whether at the blond Adonis’ statement or at his appearance he wasn’t sure. The man grinned down at him and it was crooked and perfect, both the smile and the man’s teeth. He wore a zip-up cardigan in a Norwegian style that Merlin would have made fun of for being old-ladyish on anyone else but just looked stylish on him, along with a scarf wrapped snugly around his neck. Merlin felt a niggling impression as though he knew him from somewhere even while his heart gave a smitten thump in his chest. A more immediate impression he was getting, though, was that his arse was slowly getting wet from staying seated on the ice for too long. He grimaced and shifted uncomfortably.

“Need a hand?” he asked, offering Merlin said begloved hand. Merlin mutely took it, letting the man haul him back up onto his feet. He held the hand longer than he probably ought to have, feeling the cold black leather sliding against his skin as their hands parted after a beat. “I must say, you’re a mite older than my usual students in this class,” he said as Merlin found his footing with the steadying help of the board.

“This might have been a mistake,” Merlin said as he rubbed his sore tailbone, trying not to dwell on the fact that the most attractive man he’d ever laid eyes on — the man who was apparently the instructor, and didn’t that bring on a whole new set of issues for Merlin — had seen him literally fall on his arse.

 _Great first impression, idiot,_ Merlin admonished himself.

“Oh come now, the lesson hasn’t even begun,” the man said, patting Merlin’s shoulder. “Give me a chance to disappoint you first, before you go making up your mind based on one tiny fall.”

“I’m not disappointed,” Merlin protested. The man flashed him another smile, one so sunny that Merlin was tempted to shield his eyes against it.

“Great. I’m Arthur,” he said, holding his hand out for Merlin to shake. Merlin took it and squeezed firmly, offering Arthur a smile of his own.

“Merlin,” he echoed. “And I hope you don’t laugh at me for clearly having signed up for the wrong class.”

“It’s nothing,” Arthur said with a shrug. “It happens more often than you might think. I can reschedule you if you would like something more… adult oriented,” he offered. Merlin desperately tried to ignore the double entendre inherent in Arthur’s phrasing; there was no way someone as attractive as Arthur would ever be interested in someone as weird as Merlin. No use getting his hopes up.

“Well, I should probably have contacted you before signing up, considering I wanted to take skating lessons for a video I’m making,” Merlin said, laughing sheepishly and fishing his GoPro out of his pocket to wave around, hoping Arthur wouldn’t be upset or annoyed and the potential disruption to his class.

“Ah,” Arthur said, sounding more amused than annoyed to Merlin’s relief. “Well in that case, you tell me what would work better for you.”

“Well what would work for me and what would work for everyone else in the class are probably two different things,” Merlin said, grimacing. Knowing his viewership, showing him in a class with under-10s would probably go viral in a way that him in a class of adults wouldn’t. And he could really use the views if he were being honest.

“Sounds like you have a conundrum,” Arthur said.

“You aren’t wrong,” Merlin agreed. “Unless you can get your group of gossipy mums over there to sign release forms agreeing to let me film their kids for my YouTube channel.”

“I might be able to talk them into it,” Arthur said, smirking. Merlin gave him an obvious once-over.

“Yeah I’ll bet you could,” he muttered. Arthur threw his head back and laughed, a loud braying sound that was somehow both incredibly unflattering and charming in a way that made Merlin’s stomach twist into knots. God dammit.

“Whatever you’re thinking, it’s probably only half right,” Arthur said. Merlin glanced over Arthur’s shoulder at the group of mums, paying more attention to the skating instructor than to their darlings on the ice.

“‘S that so?” he asked in his mildest voice.

“I mean I’m sure they’re lovely women—” he started and Merlin rolled his eyes so hard he was afraid they’d fall out of his head, “—but they’re definitely not my type, no matter how much they might bat their eyes at me.”

“Not into overprotective helicopter mums with too much money trying to foist their unfulfilled dreams onto their kids while making eyes at the fit skating teacher?” Merlin teased.

“Not into women,” Arthur shrugged, giving Merlin a once-over of his own. Merlin could practically feel Arthur’s gaze dragging down his body as if it were a physical thing. He shivered.

“Oh,” Merlin said for the second time in a handful of minutes. His face heated despite the cold of the rink. He thought he might die of embarrassment.

Which was saying something, considering he embarrassed himself for YouTube views on the regular. Once a week, usually. Twice, during the summer.

“Yeah,” Arthur said with a saucy quirk of his eyebrows. “You think I’m fit.”

Merlin wished the ice would melt and would drown him. “Well you _are_ an athlete, fitness is part of the deal.”

“I know that’s not what you meant,” Arthur said with a half smirk. Merlin gave him a tight smile.

“Aren’t you meant to be teaching the class how to skate?” he asked. Arthur checked his watch, peeling back the cuff of his leather glove to expose the watch face.

“Right you are. Going to join us today?” Arthur asked.

Merlin shrugged. “I paid for the class, but…”

“But perhaps you just want to observe this time?” Arthur asked. Merlin gave him an apologetic smile.

“If you don’t mind?”

“As long as you stick around afterward so we can chat about future classes,” Arthur said with a wink. Merlin found himself nodding.

“Mister Pendragon!” a chorus of young voices called.

“Ah, duty calls,” Arthur said, before turning and clapping. “All right, line up everyone and we’ll get started. Did everyone warm up?” he said in his best teacher’s voice as he skated smoothly toward the kids who were getting into position at the other end of the ice. He looked as though he’d been born to skate, and Merlin took a moment to admire the way his thighs and glutes flexed in his jeans as he used the toe pick to come to a stop in front of his students.

When he became aware he was staring, Merlin nearly fell back onto the ice; the only thing keeping him from doing so was his death grip on the boards. Slowly, he made his way back around to one of the exits from the ice and sat on one of the benches to unlace his skates. He’d only been on the ice for around 15 minutes, most of that at a standstill as he chatted up the skating instructor, but already he could feel a pain in his ankles from using muscles he wasn’t used to using. He kicked the skates off and wiggled his toes in his woolen socks. His shoes were halfway across the rink from where he sat, but that would have put him closer to the cluster of mums so he simply sat and relaxed, watching Arthur work with the kids for a few minutes until his mobile vibrated in his pocket with a text from Gwen.

_Let me know when you’re done and how it went!_

Merlin rolled his eyes. _It never really got started, but I’m going to talk to the instructor after he’s finished with class about setting something up._

 _You’re going to include me this time, aren’t you?_ Gwen answered immediately.

 _You drive a hard bargain, woman._ Merlin replied.

_Damn straight._

Merlin smiled, and shut the messaging app before opening up a browser on a whim and searching ‘Arthur Pendragon’. He was met with a number of videos, the first of which was titled “Arthur Pendragon’s silver medal winning free skate Pyeongchang 2018”. Merlin nearly dropped his phone as he finally realised why Arthur seemed familiar.

“Fuck me!” he said, loud enough that the entire rink went silent for a moment, before the kids started giggling amongst each other and Arthur stared back at him over his shoulder with raised eyebrows. “Sorry,” he called out, sinking to the floor in front of his bench to try and hide from the judgmental glares he was sure to be receiving from the group of mums. He rested his back against the bench seat and pulled his airpods out of his pocket, putting them in his ears and hitting play on the video.

As the music started — the finale of Stravinsky’s _Firebird_ suite mashed up with Fall Out Boy’s _The Phoenix_ , which shouldn’t have worked together but somehow did — Arthur began gliding across the ice in a black, subtly-sequined costume with pops of red and orange and yellow to represent fire, ribbons of the same colours dangling from his arms to suggest wings and paint on his face to make him look like a beautiful but somehow dangerous bird of paradise. There was glitter scattered in his swept-back hair that caught the stadium’s lights as he skated from one end of the rink to the other. Merlin remembered watching this programme with his mum, who had been so excited that team GBR had been in the running for a medal for the first time since Torvill and Dean’s Bolero back before Merlin had even been born or something. Merlin had been past his phase when he’d been interested in televised sport, but men’s figure skating still held some fascination for him, mostly because of the fit men in flamboyant costumes dancing gracefully on ice.

Arthur’s performance was technically skilled from what Merlin could tell, and he seemed to be a master at telling a story with his gestures and body movements, and before he realised it four and a half minutes had gone by in a flash and Arthur was taking his bow to enthusiastic screams and what seemed like hundreds of bouquets and teddy bears being thrown on the ice being picked up by young girls.

“Holy shit,” Merlin murmured. “He’s fucking famous. He’s a fucking silver medalist. Holy fuck.”

He crawled over to the boards and lifted himself to his knees to peek over the top, watching Arthur lead the children through an exercise that had them switching between the inside and outside edges of their skate blades. He was so patient with the children, gentle but firm in his instruction and with a ready smile. Merlin felt his heart thump in his chest again and whimpered in helpless captivation. Arthur caught sight of him, raising a hand to wave at him with a grin, and Merlin dropped back down to hide behind the boards, sitting with his back resting against them. He hit his forehead with his fist several times for acting like a nutter — in the process making himself look like even more of one — then exhaled a slow breath to try and regain some semblance of sense. He went back to the browser on his phone, scrolling through articles from news sites and sports sites about Arthur’s career, announcement of retirement from competition, coming out as gay and the subsequent fall out — though nothing nearly as bad as it would have been were he in a more stereotypically and toxically masculine sport like football.

Merlin spent the rest of the lesson scrolling and internally screaming, until a hand on his shoulder startled him out of his spiralling Google rabbit hole. He jumped, a hand flying to his chest to cover his heart.

“Whoa there, it’s just me,” Arthur said, holding his hands up in front of him. “You were deep into it.”

“Sorry,” Merlin said, biting his lip, tucking his mobile back into his pocket and looking up at Arthur, who was crouching in front of him still wearing his skates. “I was definitely a bit too engrossed.”

“Must have been good,” Arthur smiled.

“You’re fucking Arthur Pendragon,” Merlin said before his brain could engage the ‘proper conversation’ filter. “You’re famous.” He saw Arthur’s expression dim and his smile tighten.

“In some circles I am, I suppose,” he said. Merlin felt like a right arse, and as he moved to stand he started stammering out an apology.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that,” he said. “I just meant, you seemed familiar to me when you introduced yourself and I figured out why. Not like it’s an issue or anything. Unless it is? I can find someone else for my video if you wanted some privacy.”

“Merlin, breathe,” Arthur said, his face relaxing as they both stood. With his skates on he was at least an inch taller than Merlin and Merlin kind of liked the way he had to look up slightly to meet his eyes.

“Sorry, I’m a bit of a disaster as you can probably tell,” Merlin said, laughing at himself at the same time as he did a full-body cringe at how awkward he was.

“It’s fine, you’re fine,” Arthur said. “I actually have a bit of a confession to make as well.”

“You do?” Merlin said, cocking his head to the side.

“I watch _An Attempt Was Made_ every time a new video is uploaded,” Arthur admitted, pulling a glove off and running his fingers through his hair in embarrassment.

“Wait, you _know who I am_?!” Merlin definitely didn’t screech. It wasn’t the first time Merlin had been recognised in public, it was part of having a YouTube channel with more than 2 million subscribers, but generally the recognition happened in more predictable places. Conventions, meetups, other places where content creators were known to gather. He’d been recognised in the wild before, yes, but it was the first time that a non-YouTuber with fame of his own had known who he was.

“I knew who you were when I saw you putting on your skates,” Arthur said. Merlin groaned and covered his face.

“God, I knew I should have called you to talk about this before coming,” Merlin said. “At least I would have been prepared for this.”

Arthur laughed and gently tugged Merlin’s hands from his face. “You are much more neurotic than I expected,” he teased.

“It’s not like I hide it,” Merlin protested. “My videos are literally me showing myself being the disaster I am.”

“I know,” Arthur said with a smile and a shrug. “It’s why I like them.”

Merlin just barely held back a gurgling noise of pain. “Thanks.”

“But if you want to talk about your video plans, or just talk in general, really,” Arthur said, giving Merlin the most flirtatious smile he’d seen, “perhaps we can go out for dinner.”

“Did you just ask me out?” Merlin asked. “Because I just want to be very sure before I jump to any conclusions.”

“Yes, Merlin, I just asked you out,” Arthur said, amused. “Provided you can keep the fanboying to a minimum.”

“Same goes to you,” Merlin shot back.

“Fair enough,” Arthur laughed.

“Great,” Merlin said.

“Great,” Arthur echoed. “I have another class in a half hour, but afterward if you want to stick around, we could get down to business.”

The way Arthur said ‘business’ made Merlin think he meant anything but business. He couldn’t wait.

“If you don’t mind me staring at you through another class, I’d love to hang around.”

Arthur smiled and put a hand on Merlin’s upper arm, squeezing it before heading toward the door leading back to the ice. He paused long enough to put his glove back on, and Merlin cleared his throat.

“Do you think,” Merlin asked with a shameless grin, “I could get some footage of you skating for my B-roll?”

Arthur rolled his eyes, but as his blades hit the ice he immediately flew into a sprint that covered half the rink in a few seconds and with an ease born of many thousands of hours of practice he launched himself into a jump that appeared impossibly effortless. As Merlin fumbled with the GoPro, he fought a giddy smile. If Arthur permitted, the name of this series of videos was going to be _An Attempt was Made at Skating with Bonus Attempt at Dating_.

**Author's Note:**

> Huge I'm sorry to Shoma Uno for taking away your medal and giving it to Arthur instead. Gomen nasai! Also an acknowledgement that Torvill and Dean did win a bronze medal in 1994, 10 years after their Bolero gold, but Merlin wouldn't have known that.
> 
> Thanks so much for reading, I'd love to hear what you thought!


End file.
